I am a disabled veteran, I was homeless for a year after being medically discharged from the US military. Almost 5 years later I annually pay 2.5x in taxes as I received in benefits. If I hadn't gotten some sort of fiscal assistance I'd probably still be homeless or dead. Furthermore I got infected with tuberculosis while deployed and if I was still homeless I'd probably be contagious at this point.

Receiving aid & support from State & Federal sources got me off the street, a regular diet of healthy food, and medical expertise that helped me adapt. As long as nothing else bad happens to me, I will most likely contribute $30,000 to $40,000 additional taxes a year for the next two decades. Not to bad an investment considering it only cost maybe $14,000 to $16,000 to get me back on my feet?

I am a disabled vet as well. I am receiving veterans disability payments and an education so that I can get back on my feet and become a contributing member of society again.

I think many fail to realize that the majority of people that receive benefits from welfare programs are people that found themselves in difficult situations and are working to get themselves out of that situation. Instead, they focus on the minority (not an ethnic reference) that abuse the programs. You will never completely eliminate the abuse, that is a fact that just has to be accepted if the debate is to move beyond and focus on those that use programs to simply get them back on their feet or keep them afloat in hard times.

I can interpret your question in one of two ways: Why not let private companies receive government assistance?

If that's the correct intent of your question, governments have been providing monetary and legislative support not just to individual companies but sometimes whole industries with mixed results since the beginning of human civilization.

If you mean, why not try to secure a loan from a bank or other lending organization. The only organizations capable of the high risk of investing in the mentally ill or just generally unfortunate are government agencies. If an investment doesn't pan out, that's sad & unfortunate but won't mean the government will go out of business.

If you mean, why not try to secure a loan from a bank or other lending organization. The only organizations capable of the high risk of investing in the mentally ill or just generally unfortunate are government agencies. If an investment doesn't pan out, that's sad & unfortunate but won't mean the government will go out of business.

There is virtually no risk in such investment.

If you allocate all your funds in one big investment - there is huge risk. If you allocate your funds in thousands of small investments - there is almost no risk.

it amazes me that so many people think a poor person can sit on his or her ass and just collect taxpayer money indefinitely.

if you're collecting unemployment benefits, that means you've worked long enough to actually be entitled to receive the funds, that means you've been forced out of work through no fault of your own, that means you have to be actively looking for work. if you see someone who's collecting unemployment benefits and they're not actively looking for work, then that means they're job-attached and are waiting to get hired back on where they'd been working before being laid off, or they're waiting for their union number to come back up (and their benefits are paid out of union coffers). oh, and to a poster below in this thread: nope, no unemployment officials are checking tweets to see if you've been looking for a job. sheesh.

if someone is collecting SSI, then they've gone through a rigorous process in which their eligibility was determined. that person is not living high on the hog with the cash he or she gets from SSI.

if a person is receiving welfare, that means he or she is responsible for rearing one or more children. a means of child support has already been established and, for every dime of taxpayer money that goes to raising the child(ren), an equal amount of money will be assessed against the child support order. the person raising the child(ren) is only allowed to receive welfare benefits for three years, regardless of how many children are involved, and a work-search plan is established (and what a lofty idea that is -- so many "welfare moms" are barely able to hold down a job at mcdonald's). if the person who's been court ordered to be financially responsible doesn't pay, that doesn't mean taxpayers won't be getting their money back. child support orders never go away. they can't be dismissed in bankruptcy, and authorities can take away the non-payer's driver's license or professional license. the authorities can make your life miserable. yes, there are deadbeat parents who actively avoid the court order. they do so at their own peril.

lots of changes have been made over the years to entitlement programs to ensure that fraud is kept to a manageable level.

i get really pissed off when i hear someone complain about somebody they know who goes to extraordinary efforts to live on the dole. those types of people are very rare, and if that person wants to devote massive effort to scrambling around after nickels and dimes that the government throws down, then that's the vocation they've chosen.

if you ask me, dealing with the most intractable bureaucrats in our government on a constant basis is a pretty wacky career choice. that person might be a lay-about, but you can't say they're not tenacious.

my theory is that our overlords encourage us to fight amongst ourselves. that way we're not paying attention when they cheat us on a much, much, much grander scale.

EDIT: i fixed my one most heinous grammatical error and to add this...in colorado where i live, the average welfare recipient is female with two kids, and is of course not getting child support payments from the kids father; and the average length of time of being on the dole is 18 months. or at least those were the stats from not quite ten years ago. there's no telling how the bad economy has changed things.

PS. - Disability payments max out at about 1000 bucks a month. 250 dollars a week. That is the poverty line. Lose both legs in a horrible car accident here ride the line at least you won't die. I am on disability and have been for two years. (Mental problem affecting my rationality in situations not my intelligence) I get 700 bucks a month or 175 dollars a week. I could be reaccessed if I get a lawyer I can't afford or I could get a job if hiring businesses weren't discriminatory bastards. I could barely find an apartment not because I couldn't pay but because they were apparently worried that I'd be trouble. As soon as the economy picks up I'm lying on every application I can find. This shit sucks ass.

First off, I see a lot of people lumping Unemployment in with government aid. Unemployment is Insurance that YOU directly pay into along with YOUR employer, and is part of the same policy that everybody else pays into. Saying that it's wrong to take and utilize Unemployment Benefits is akin to saying that you should never use your Health Insurance, because "any good, hard-working person would just go get a second job to afford that surgery." Chances are that no matter how much time you spend on unemployment, you will have already paid in far more than you are getting from it.

I also see a lot of folks who "know somebody" who's scamming the system. I always hear that crap. I hate to break it to folks, but the same kind of abuse of the system happens in ANY system, government or otherwise. Everybody bitches and raises hell and wants to do away with Unemployment and Welfare and whatnot whenever they hear about abuses of it. I never hear anybody pitch the same fit when they hear about somebody scamming or abusing their own PRIVATE insurance. They may scream to take away that person's insurance, but I have yet to hear anybody tell me that they want their boss to cancel their insurance because some woman in Delaware racked up a huge bill on a boob job.

The thing that really annoys the hell out of me is that, for all the talk of people screwing the system, I never hear anybody REPORT it. Most government programs audit recipients to minimize abuse. Almost every one of them has a hotline that you can call to report abuse. When I mention this to people, I always get the standard answer of, "it's not my responsibility to report these people" or some garbage. I say that's a gigantic cop out. You don't get to sit there and ignore abuse at the same time as you complain about it. That's the same thing as complaining about how cops can't seem to catch a serial killer when you know for a fact that it's that guy that lives across the hall from you. After all, you saw him hack up bodies in his tub.

In any large system where people CAN take advantage of a system, there will be people that WILL. Rather than doing away with said system or penalizing people who are legitimately utilizing the system as it was intended, why not simply work harder to crack down on abuse of the system? No amount of regulation will ever prevent it entirely. That's where it does become the responsibility of people who witness abuse to inform the authorities of it.

There are all kinds of laws on the books regarding murder. That doesn't stop murders from occurring. Cops have a much harder time catching a killer or even know that a murder has has been committed if nobody calls it it. The same is true with the federal government.

The #1 recipient of welfare programs (WIC, CHP, etc) are young children. Regardless of whether or not their parents are bums, are people suggesting that children should be denied food, medical care, clothing, housing, etc. because their parents are lazy, incompetent, or disabled?

Very few people are going to say that outright. Nobody likes to consider that. Instead, it's preferred to rant and rave about the evil government stealing your money via taxes backed by men with guns. Generally there's a vauge implication that the person would give this money voluntarily to charity if it wasn't taken via taxes.

Generally, this isn't true.

People don't like to consider that they're hurting children when these programs aren't funded. So instead a lot of rhetoric that avoids the subject is substituted.

We have Medicaid for our three kids, but, although we would qualify, we don't have it (my husband and I). That said, should something catastrophic occur, we would get it to take care of the catastrophe, and followup. We pay our bills, too. One of our cars was a gift, the other cost $200. We don't eat junk food, so our food stamps go a long way, and provide for the entire month. My husband's unemployment keeps us going until he finds a job, which he IS looking for. We have four kids, and take care of several more.

The problem is if normal, good and smart people use government aid then I could need it some day. They would rather demonize others then face their own over whelming fears. The truth is they don't believe in the safety nets so hate is their only emotional protection. Which may explain poor Republicans.

Welfare is the wedge that the ruling class shoves between the working class so as to divide us against ourselves by preying on humanity's worst tendency to be lazy. So the rest of us hard-working people come to hate the others on welfare and view them as a problem sucking away funds from proper purposes to the point where we get so fed up with it, that we rescind welfare itself. Meanwhile, the ruling class lower their own taxes and give themselves larger bonuses, all the while keeping our wages extremely low. We are angry with the wrong group of people. It's a basic distraction tactic, and it keeps working.

It's one of those things that's so ingrained that people don't even bother to question it. Kind of like "government is inherently inefficient and wasteful."

I've noticed that when a lot of people mention "common sense", they're actually referring to these sort of ingrained values which they accept on faith and are so fundamental to their belief system that there is literally no way you could ever convince them otherwise. Confirmation bias is just far too strong.

Using my own family as an example: one brother is now a surgeon at a state medical center.Two brothers are working for the government, one was a fitness instructor, and one was a swim instructor before their current jobs. My younger brother attends a public high school and is also an athlete, and I attend a state university, and am also an athlete. I mention our fitness because we received free health care through medicare and medicaid for my siblings and my parents. We also received financial aid for college, and we each attended public high schools.

Unfortunately, despite our healthy lifestyle, my dad has heart disease and is at risk for diabetes, genetic in our family, and is on medication for it. He works 15 hour workdays managing the busiiness that supports our family, and only takes off every other week.

With his hard work he was able to put us all through college. It wouldn't have been possible with his low income, without the government funded health care that is saving his life (and that saved my life earlier this year when I caught swine flu and pneumonia at the same time), or the government aid that has helped my dad pay for our education.

I would hardly call any of leeches or lazy bums. We take very good care of ourselves and work very hard, and are exceptionally successful individuals (though we are terrible as a family). And the aid that we received from the government is being paid back, because we are now successful and working, paying taxes and constantly spending as the all American consumers that we are.

Aid is not something we take advantage of just because we can, nor is it something that we take for granted. These privileges (free healthcare, fiinancial aid, free education) are the reason why we've been able to succeed the way we have, rather than continuing our lives as stagnant deadweights.

The point of the government aid (welfare, unemployment, SS, medicaid) is that it is meant to be the helping hand that gets you back up on your feet. It's supposed to be just enough that we don't have the problems that occured during the 1930's. The problem, is that with any system, there are people that game it to their benefit. Like with everything, you need to look at it in a case-by-case basis.

I have family members that got a house from habitat for humanity, recieve food stamps and the like and they have iPhones, drive a Jeep and wear designer clothes. I've seen people in the grocery store paying with the Access cards the state gives them (food stamps) with the same kind of items. However, these are not a good representation of every person in these situations. As there are graduate students getting the same aid because their stipends barely pay them enough to to eat and live.

I'd personally like to see more job training programs to go along with the aid so that it doesn't become a continuous cycle with someone unable to get off the aid.

when my mom was a little kid in the '40s she lived in a crappy apartment with her little brother, her mom, her aunt, her two cousins and her grandmother. they were on welfare. the authorities would come into their home at least once a year to see if they were hiding any gold, i guess. once, one of the authorities chided my great-grandmother for having two dresses. she allegedly said to the welfare official, "what am i supposed to wear when i'm washing one dress?" the official said, "your bathrobe."

our society tried to get away from that. do you think it's really wise to go back?

Absolutly not. However, something has to be done to break the cycle, hence the job training programs. If you are an unskilled laborer and you get laid off, how about a training program to give you a better shot at getting a new/better job? But this is still only a solution for someone that wants to get off of the aid. If someone sees no issue with never getting off it then they won't.

The story you tell is not different from what I've heard from older realtives and it's because of the rich "paupers" that sprang up during the depression. People activly hiding their wealth from the gov't.

my mom worked for 25 years as a child support enforcement tech here in colorado. she said they train the hell out of the young mothers (usual welfare recipient) and it's a complete losing battle. many don't have basic skills to get through a simple job training program. they don't have a car to get there. some can't even make it in to work each day because of one thing or another going on with themselves or their kid(s). some don't even have enough sense to practice proper grooming. the county social services department where she worked often took the promising ones who kept having bad breaks onto the payroll and worked hard to give them an opportunity to establish a work record.

interestingly, if you'd looked up "bleeding heart liberal" in the dictionary, for a time there would have been a picture of my mom. she moved a bit rightward, but not much. her feeling is that it's sometimes more cost effective to just toss them a few bucks (and that's usually all it takes to make them happy) then try to micromanage their lives.

I had a friend that was the same way. She's still very liberal, but after working 6 months in the welfare office for the poor part of the city she had completly changed her position on the way welfare should be. I've never seen anyone broken that quickly.

As a nitpick, this ("graduate students getting the same aid because their stipends barely pay them enough to to eat and live") must vary from state to state (or perhaps country). As a grad student, my salary was low enough that I would have qualified for food stamps but was ineligible to receive them because I was a (grad) student. (I was eligible for Stafford loans, to be precise, but not for any sort of welfare/ living or food subsidy.)

I think we can all agree that there are going to be "freeloaders" who are going to take advantage of unemployment, or welfare, or what-have-you, in any society that offers those services. It doesn't mean that anyone who accepts government handouts is a crack-smoking, lazy fatass, (as many conservatives seem to believe,) and it certainly doesn't mean that they are all talented, but frustrated, starving artists just waiting for their opportunity to tell their story to the world (or whatever.)

The fact is that there are millions of people that genuinely rely on these services in order to feed their family, and that should be reason enough to keep them going.

Let's examine who these people are, not the ones receiving aid, those who hold the opinion that those in need are lazy. Ask most wealthy people and they will justify their wealth by saying they worked very hard for their wealth. So, if they worked hard and got wealthy, they assume that anyone without wealth did not work hard. The truth is that luck plays a major role, but people do not want to admit this - so they justify their success by taking all the credit. And in the same way, poor people are given all the blame for their poverty.

The second type of person who holds this opinion is the one who may be poor but wants to be wealthy and identifies with the wealthy, much like a sports fan identifies with a particular team by wearing the team colors and waving the team mascot. This person too, holds the opinion of the wealthy that all one needs is hard work (and less government) and one can be rich.

I think there is also a tendency to gloss over how great wealth accumulating in one individual is typically based on taking a cut of the profit off of a pyramid of people working below them for far less. A factory magnate makes a few dollars on every product one of his employees assembles, even though he didn't do any of the assembly work with his own hands. His 'work' as a capitalist was in having the money and knowledge to set up the system, and then sit back and get wealthy off that cut of each product his workers make. I'm not saying the capitalist should get nothing, but I don't believe he deserves to be any wealthier than the workers doing the actual labor.

I say this as a capitalist who sets up businesses and lives off the income without working myself, by the way.

I was a salesman for many years, calling on small business and seeing with my own eyes the risks and devotion taken on by business owners. I have no argument with their wealth being more than those of their employ, so long as there is no exploitation. But none of these owners was of great wealth. I have no argument with the wealth accumulated by men like Edison and Gates who did do by bringing something of value to such a wide number of people. However, I am totally opposed to the ways that men like Blankenship make their fortunes, by ways of union busting, monopoly, and collusion with government and the courts.The difficult thing is being able to differentiate between the two methods of accumulating wealth. I believe that a tax code can be developed with these qualities and I would welcome it.I have one very simple way to begin. I do not know exactly what the ratio of wages is with our federal government, but I will assume for the sake of discussion that it is 5:1, with the president earning $400K and an average government employee earning $80K (or whatever). The federal government can institute a policy that dictates any business dealings with private companies can only be entered into if that company has the same wage ration. We can do the same with local and state governments.

it's still an apples to oranges kind of thing. the great big capitalist incorporates and may or may not continue to run the company. many corporations, run by career CEOs who make vastly more money than the worker-bees (and often come aboard, institute slash and burn type policies, then leave), have shareholders expecting big dividends.

I am not lazy, and I get food stamps (A LOT of food stamps) and health benefits. We do have kids. I just don't make very much money. I went to culinary school, when I should have been in high school, chasing dreams of eventual restaurant ownership. After ten years, the most money I have ever made on a job was 15/hour. This is not enough for a family of four to exist on in Portland Oregon. I am back in school, now, which is more money from the government. School feels like cheating the system, but when I am making 100,000$ a year, I will gladly pay my taxes, so other people in my situation get the help they need.

Did I say I can't feed my family? Did I say I can't take care of my family? Fuck you.

Yes, you did say you can't take care of them when you you said:

I get food stamps (A LOT of food stamps) and health benefits

You are assuming that when you finish school you will be making $100k+ a year. While I don't know what degree you've decided to get while living off the government, I feel pretty confident in telling you that you probably won't make that much money for a long time if ever. I'd like to think that this will have a storybook ending, but it sounds unrealistic. Hopefully you will make enough to support your family and eventually pay some money back into the system, but it will never be close to how much you've taken. I just hope you're using this time to get a degree where you'll actually have a job.

Talk to an attorney who specializes in SSI work; this isn't an area I specialize in, but I was under the understanding that your work credits for disability insurance determine your pay out rate, not your complete eligibility.

Even if I'm wrong, you could make a job for yourself. Your mother is paying you money anyway, right? Set up a cheap corporate structure (a sole partnership would work for this) and have her pay you the money she's giving you anyway as compensation for some job. Doesn't really matter what, as long as it's something. Could be cleaning. Important part is to pay those SSI taxes for a while, so that you can develop some minimal work history, even if the pay for the work isn't enough to live on. (That way it isn't proof of gainful employment)

It's a lot of hassle for a 400-600 dollar monthly disability insurance income, but I know how that can make the difference between eating and not. Disability is for people exactly like you, people who can't work even if they want to. Don't cheat yourself out of what your mother has worked her entire life paying taxes for.

these people on public assistance are doing your country a great service, they are draining funds from the war machine that is murdering civilians across the world, as well as actively oppressing american citizens.. without them, your government would have more funds to make your life worse, next time you see somebody on welfare, thank them

This isn't the sole reason, but for 30 years, right-wing radio has been repeating that stereotype ad nauseam. Fox "News" (since it hires from right-wing radio to a large degree) also repeats this stereotype. Right-wing radio is HUGE. Fox "News" is the most watched cable "news" program.

That, and people generally like feeling superior to others so while they may be rich or middle class AND lazy or with a lot of kids AND use as many government hand-outs as possible, they are not poor so that puts them up on the pedestal they believe they deserve.

Brought to you by Ronald Regan and his effort to demonize the "Cadillac welfare Queens" so that his party could dismantle the safety net. Until people realize what a evil person he was we will never have a reasoned discussion. Since he's a hero to the right this will probably never happen.

I've always tried to explain these programs to their opponents as an insurance program for all of us. If something awful happens to me (serious injury, long-term unemployment, etc.), I will appreciate the assistance. My mother with a graduate degree has been out of work for over two years. My father was a USNA graduate and a Naval aviator. These are not lazy bums, but have been grateful for the assistance of an unemployment check.

As for the freeloaders - it's certainly a problem. My father now runs a non-profit that provides a summer camp experience for inner city kids. They charge the families $35 (of the $600+) it costs in order to assure they have some ownership of the experience. There are families that $35 is a burden, so they have a system to cover even that. Every year he has people who come into the office with manicured nails and a smartphone with their luxury SUV in the parking lot asking to have the $35 covered.

But, to take the insurance analogy further, there are people that commit insurance fraud that cost us all money and could "ruin" the system. However, we try to find and prosecute them but also look at whatever slips through as a cost of doing business. Even in early hunter-gatherer societies there must have been people that would go out in the wilderness and nap all day while the band worked. We have laws in a civilization, but there will always be those that want a free ride. Throwing away programs that have well served millions because of some cheats seems counterproductive. I'm much more concerned about corporations that freeload off our services and pay no US income taxes or people that make millions annually off trusts and pay a lower tax rate than I do.

WHat gets me I read a GOPr blogger going off on how black walmart employees were complaining about wages and wanted a union.

Of course he told them to STFU and be happy they have a job and they could be easily replaced and this is what is wrong with america, people always demanding more for nothing.

same guys just days earlier had written an article about how unfair it was that 42% of americans dont pay taxes.

same people bitiching about these people trying to get theri wages increased.. bitch that these people take welfare... when all they want is a full time job that pays enough to stay off welfare.

with republicans you cant win. work 80 hours a week and bring home 32k and you are a lazy bum. as for higher wages and you are just trying to make everything cost more.. you commie. The economy explodes and your factory cuts jobs.. you are out of work cause you are a lazy bum.. dont you know mcdonalds is hiring 20 million new workers... not.

Not to mention that Walmart costs the states millions; here in Wisconsin, Walmart basically subsidizes its crappy insurance with the state insurance, Badger Care. Link. Quote: "The biggest employer of BadgerCare recipients was Wal-Mart, which had 809 of its employees and 443 of employee dependents enrolled in the state program in April. Providing health care for those 1,252 people costs Wisconsin about $2.7 million a year..."

This a always a difficult subject with people. Do we punish people who are truly in need because someone else might abuse the system? Or do we provide for people who need it and accept that there are always going to be freeloaders?

How about making people who are physically able to work perform some type of community service until they get a job or decide they would rather take nothing that have to work for it. There is plenty of parks and roads in my state that could use some clean up.

Funny that this was mentioned, I literally just applied (and was approved for) state benefits last week.

I am a full time college student with a 20-hr/week work-study job @ the school. I have a 4 year old son. My fiance is starting his classes/work study mid-May, however he's not covered by any of the benefits by our choice - he has been out of work for many months & finally decided that he needed to go back to school to be of any real use in the workforce.

Times have been very tough this past year, and we have fought to stay afloat and pay all of our bills on time and deal with the situation we're in. We bought a used car a year and a half ago, when both of us were working great and what we thought were steady, jobs. We've been living with his grandparents for the past several months, and have decided that we've overstayed our welcome and need to move out. So, we're selling the car and are getting a crappy apartment close to campus. Even with our work-study jobs and the government assistance, we'll only be able to afford a 1-bedroom, but we think it will be doable for the next year and a half until we both are done with school and can get real jobs that pay more than minimum wage.

I don't like taking welfare, but our situation is exactly what is what meant for. We went through some tough times, but we are trying our hardest to come out the other end as better people - we just need some help in getting there so that we don't end up on the street and starving. If we didn't have our son, I most likely would not have asked for the help.

I was quite horrified at other people when I waited my 4 hours in the waiting room to apply for the benefits (a wait that I didn't mind - those employees work hard for little, and have to deal with this crap day in, day out). There were a few people like me who seemed dressed in older clothes, whose general aura let others know that they were doing what they had to do to survive. Then there were people coming in with 3-5 small kids, all dressed in brand-new name brand clothes, toting bags of fast food. One lady had a Coach purse! Obviously, they were abusing the system because there is no way in fucking hell that you can have brand new name brand clothes, a coach purse, and still need public assistance. It made me very angry seeing so many people there like this.

TLDR:My family is on public assistance as of last week, after falling on very rough times & deciding we needed to better ourselves & get our degrees.

My domestic partner of 15 years died last month after fighting ovarian cancer for five years. She was not eligible for my insurance because we are a gay couple. We have both been employed all of our lives. However, despite obtaining a teaching certificate while on chemo, she quickly became too weak to work at all. After exhausting her life savings paying the uncovered portion of her medical bills for the first year of her surgeries and treatments, she went on Medicaid and SSI because her illness had made her destitute. I had to move away and get another job instead of being there full time to care for her for a couple of years, but during the last year I had to be there for her full time after the cancer metastasized to her brain, so I quit my job and there went my savings too.

My partner had nice clothes - before her body became too damaged for her to wear them - because before her illness, she had been a productive member of society. After she needed help, she went around in an old flannel shirt because she didn't want to be sneered at as a welfare cheat by "horrified" jerks like you.

Really, not every person recieving aid is some hardworking honest, down on their luck American who needs a quick handout.

I've seen the teenage moms. They treat these handouts like its just a normal part of life. Turn 16, have a kid or two or three, get on the gov roll, and that'll be that. I saw something like "Maybe you shouldn't have kids" and it's taken offensively.

That's not to say I'm against government programs, but things need to be structured to discourage such behavior. I realize that merely cutting off funds is too simplistic a solution, and would create a problem as you are attempting to starve out the underclass.

We need teenage girls to stop having babies. Period. But its cultural, in the city. It's normal, it's not discouraged.

It's the same thing with health care reform. I'm for it, but at the same time, I don't wanna fund the treatments of people who are fat and lazy. Not everyone needing health care is some down on their luck hard worker in a bad situation. Lots of people are fucking lazy in this country.

So, there you go. People on the right would downmod me for supporting these programs, people on the left would downmod me for holding conservative worldview thoughts on human behavior. Take it or leave it.

Indeed. So what are the percentages? Bums to down-on-their-luckers I mean. The extremes definitely get the spotlight, but how many people used welfare for a time when they needed it, then left it never to return? Additionally, how much money has been spent on people living off the system contrasted with how much money has been spent on people who started paying back into the system after a period of time (1 year, 2 years, 5 years?).

Lots of people are fucking lazy in this country.

This is a vague statement that leads to a vague number of people, likely derived from your own anecdotal experiences. It is not, however, a breakdown of aid recipients into relevant percentages. Because people are generally bad with big numbers and don't usually understand statistics, the statement winds up implying that much is being wasted on such people. This is not necessarily true of course, as I'm sure you know.

but things need to be structured to discourage such behavior.

Indeed. This is true for any system we have in place, from welfare to banking regulations. Incentives are key. Any specific suggestions on this one? I've heard anything from Chinaesque solutions to redistribution of wealth arguments. I was curious as to your take though.

The thing is, your stereotypes assume things about these programs that aren't even true. People can't collect on these programs for more than a handful of years, for starters. The idea of 'get on the gov roll and that'll be that' for teenage parents is a complete falsehood. There is no program that works like that.

Frank Lutz is pretty much the mastermind for the huge Republican success in creating such stereotypes for whatever might strengthen the GOP agenda, for many, many years now. He's an expert at determining what psychological buttons people have, and how to push them perfectly to make them think whatever he wants them to think.

until the talking-heads that many listen to quit using blanket statements when referring to those who do receive government aid.

my dad's been on unemployment twice in his life. once, back in the 80s, and once now. he's not lazy, and doesn't take advantage of the system.

but when you corner someone who paints people like my dad as lazy people gaming the system, the response seems to always be one of two things: "we weren't talking about people like that, you know that", or "unemployment encourages people to not find a job".

I used to think that way until I've had people around me and close to me not being able to work because of various conditions (i.e. depression, anxiety). It then becomes a vicious circle, the stress of not job or money coming in makes it next to impossible for them to get better. I'm talking about people here with great work ethics and potential to succeed but circumstances beyond their control really messed them up.

I think there's a strong economic argument for the existence of a social safety net. The simple fact is, it's much harder to reintegrate the workforce and become a productive member of society once you fall below a certain standard of living. It's a lot harder to find a job when you're living out of your car, for instance. On that level alone, I think unemployment insurance/welfare/etc are important because they prevent people from becoming classified as 'unemployable'. Additionally, I think the economic cost of these programs is overstated when you consider that pretty much every penny that's given out is spent back into the economy.

Other than that, I think there's a number of hidden social costs that would emerge with the elimination of the social safety net. In a capitalist system, it's unavoidable that some people will end up in financial trouble. When that happens, in the absence of a safety net, you're looking at a potential increase in severe poverty, and all the problems that come with that: falling property values, increased crime, a higher 'freeloader' burden on the medical system, etc.

The way I see it, you can spend a few thousand dollars helping a person out when they're down, and then they'll reintegrate the workforce and produce value which benefits the economy as a whole. Or, you can let them fail, and they become unable to find work and become a bigger societal burden than any 'welfare queen' could ever be.

While I'm sure not EVERY recipient of docial welfare is lazy, my personal first hand observations have shown otherwise. Out of like 15 or so people I know who took unemployment in the past two years only one looked for a job in earnest. The rest sat on their butt and watched tv for literally months and updated twitter with their attempts to fool unemployment so the benefits kept coming. One guy took. Trip to europe.

Interesting. I don't know anyone who's ever done this. I'm a software developer in Phoenix, AZ, and my various colleagues and I have all been on unemployment from time to time. We each report feeling huge amounts of anxiety, desperately looking for jobs while trying to eke out mortgage payments and feed our families.

Sure, we try to save money for these times, but it's never anywhere near enough. Unemployment payments give us a little extra breathing room during the lean times, but they don't let us relax. When you're laid off, it feels like someone just pushed you out of a plane at 37,000 feet. Unemployment payments are like someone shoving a small umbrella into your hand as you go through the door; they'll slow your fall a bit, but they won't save you.

I'm sure this is going to make me enemies saying this, but I would almost rather have "lazy" people "scamming" the system for a few months than pushing useless reams of paper just to have the right to exist. Maybe they'll get their shit together, even just mentally, and strike out to do something actually meaningful soon, other than just work at a burger joint. Not to bash on fast food workers -- I think their function is as much a travesty as a CEO, cop, teacher (the kind that works in schools, not the kind that actually helps people learn...though occasionally they are the same -- this is a coincidence), office worker, politician, or whatever other nonsense we esteem.

But then I also think rent is anti-human, and people are more important than things, so I'm obviously crazy.

I'm sure this is going to make me enemies saying this, but I would almost rather have "lazy" people "scamming" the system for a few months than pushing useless reams of paper just to have the right to exist.

It just seems wrong.. Taking money from a hard working honest person just to give it to somebody who is too lazy to work.. I mean Robin Hood sounds well and good, but at the end of the day you're still stealing.

I got let go from a job last year. At that job, my boss was a raging alcoholic who sometimes called in "sick" three out of five days a week, and over the phone I could tell that he was still drunk from the night before. When he did come in, he was frequently hung-over, unwashed, and cranky, and would spend the day yelling at me for not having things done. Unfortunately, many of the things not done depended on his being there to sign documents, or explain some technical aspects that I could not solve on my own. So when his clients started demanding their money back because they hadn't received service, or hadn't shown up for a meeting, he blamed me, and when all the refunds added up to not being able to pay the rent for the office, he decided to let me go rather than get his act together.

I spent 6 months on unemployment, and during that time I didn't look for a job as hard as I probably should have. I did this because it was the first vacation I'd ever had, and because I knew the money was coming from the unemployment insurance my alcoholic boss had already paid on his business. I had worked a number of jobs already, and always tried to do my best as an employee; I had gotten a full ride to college because I worked my ass off in high school, and I worked my ass off in college to do well, while still working part-time to pay for books and living expenses, and, on the side, trying to take care of my dysfunctional family. At that point I felt like I deserved a break.

So yes, I sat around a bit, taking time to do things I had never been able to do before, because I felt like I had earned it. And I was happy to do it on my ex-boss's dime, because at that point I felt like he fucking owed me one.

Fuck. Thank you for not beating yourself up about this and continuing the ritualized cycle of abuse.

You didn't deserve that kind of noise. And no one else does, either. Not that saying such things is going to get anything but downvotes on most of reddit, but I wish everyone would quit their abusive relationships with work and chill out for a few weeks, and then start trying to heal.

I have had similar conversations with some of my family members who have, unfortunately, partaken deeply of the Fox News Kool-aid. Exceptions are easily found to sweeping general judgments made with incomplete information; when one actually puts a face on a statement like "welfare queens" or "gaming the system," oftentimes the general statement no longer applies.

Many people work very hard in this country, at very shit jobs, for little reward. And sure, it's "just the way things are" and "just the way the system works," but that system is broken, and that system sucks, and I would encourage anyone who gets the chance to take a break from it. Plenty of people work their asses off for years and years, and never get the chance to take a vacation, or visit another country, or even go to the damn library for an afternoon.

So if you get laid off and get unemployment, put in an application for a job you're not even close to qualified for and take two weeks off to do something you've always wanted to, but couldn't because you had to go to that shit job.

I think many of those who disagree with you aren't familiar with how the U.S. works harder than every other 1st world nation besides Japan. Longer hours, less pay, fewer benefits, less vacation. In most countries 3 to 5 weeks of paid vacation a year is standard, and people with modest jobs make enough to travel anywhere in the world twice a year.

Heh. Yeah. My mom works for an international company, and most of her staff and colleagues are in the Netherlands. They thought she was insane for apologizing for having to take a week off to attend to me in the hospital, but she had already taken most of her vacation days for the year, so she thought it necessary. They also thought it was nuts that we only get two weeks' paid vacation a year.

She explained to them that if her company could get along without her for a month, in American business standard terms, that meant she was not essential to operation, and therefore an unnecessary expense. It is, indeed, a fundamental difference in philosophies.

i've worked steadily since the day i turned 18 years old, except for two occasions when i've gotten laid off and collected unemployment. the first time, i actively searched for work but used all that leisure time to have a slight surgical procedure. my republican father said i should have reported the surgery to the unemployment office and not have been paid for that week. meanwhile, there was a glitch in the unemployment system, and even though i'd been awarded benefits i didn't get checks for nearly three months. i finally called the congressman for our district. he said he'd get on it. two days later i got my checks.

the second time i collected unemployment, i'd been laid off along with about 50 other people. i was informed i was entitled to get unemployment, no questions asked. instead, i took the first job i could find, a strictly on-call position that wasn't remotely related to what i'd done for 15 years, and what i'd been doing when i'd been laid off. i worked for a few months and the calls started drying up (it was seasonal work). i got a call to work after a stretch of a couple of weeks of no work, but i had a job interview the next day and turned it down. a month later i finally went to the unemployment office. i got a couple checks -- about $1,200 -- and then was informed that since i'd turned down the on-call opportunity (one day's work, mind you), i was being penalized and would have to pay back what i'd gotten.

as paul harvey would say, "and now for the rest of the story"...because it's both sad and funny. the congressman who helped me get my unemployment checks was a republican. i was thankful for what he did, so i voted for him next election. a year or so later, i was working in a restaurant and had to wait on this congressman and all his fat cat friends. he of course didn't know who i was, nor did i say anything. at one point when i was taking plates away and leaned a bit over the table he patted me on the ass. needless to say, that's the only vote i've ever cast that i've regretted.

Unemployment isn't stealing; people pay unemployment insurance with their wages, and what they get back is based on how much they paid in. What they do with the insurance they've earned and paid for is up to them. There's no reason to be on a high horse here.

Here's the thing, though: How do you know they're "taking money from a hard working honest person?"

First of all, prove they're taking money from someone. Second, prove the person they're taking it from is hard working. Next, show me how this person is honest. Oh, and then prove to me how the person is too lazy. Too lazy for whom? Why do you get to decide the minimum level of slavery someone must endure to earn the right to breath air, eat, or stretch.

What if this money is instead diverting funds from bombs dropped on babies to feed themselves. Which is less harmful? A full "lazy" belly, or splattered kids?

Seriously, you aren't even trying to think about this. You're repeating your belief, your religion: Working is good, even if it makes you miserable and causes harm -- it's the right thing to do, even if it kills you.

Hope you don't take this the wrong way, I'm not trying to be mean. But you're just repeating something you've taken on faith. Let's reason this out.

We're going off of your example here. The one where the person is on twitter all day collecting welfare, and you're perfectly ok with that.

Too lazy for whom? Why do you get to decide the minimum level of slavery someone must endure to earn the right to breath air, eat, or stretch.

Well if you're broke and not trying to get a job, I'd say that's pretty lazy.

What if this money is instead diverting funds from bombs dropped on babies to feed themselves. Which is less harmful? A full "lazy" belly, or splattered kids?

Why can't I be against both of these things? Why can't I wish the money not be spent at all and remain in the earner's pocket?

Seriously, you aren't even trying to think about this. You're repeating your belief, your religion: Working is good, even if it makes you miserable and causes harm -- it's the right thing to do, even if it kills you.

Well I know what they are not: IE premiums. Maybe it is different where you live but where I live, the employer and employee both pay into a fund that is intended to pick up the slack and/or help you retrain when you lose your job. The government has tried (with some success) to turn the EI program into a stealth tax but that is certainly never the way that it was intended to be.

There are a number of restrictions on who can collect EI and when and how much but there are fewer restrictions on who has to pay and how much. I can assure you that (at least partially due to a policy which was later deemed illegal) I have paid far more into EI than I can possibly ever collect.

Wow. You've made so many weird/blind assumptions, it's hard to start. I thought I might have been too harsh saying you were just parroting your weird work-religion, but your justification for every single thing you just said might as well be from the Book of Job (oh shit, I made a funny!). This whole mean paragraph was just for that joke, actually. Apologies. Wasn't even a good joke, but it was mine!

Well, they have a job.

Seriously, friend. Having a job doesn't mean you're hard working. Nor does it mean what you're doing is good, or right. It only says that you've agreed (or been coerced) into trading your finite hours of life for green paper that we've somehow agreed is more important than just about everything.

they have legitimate job and they pay their taxes.

Same thing. This does not make a someone a good person. It just means they play by rules of a game set up to scam them out of their lives in exchange for essentially meaningless paper. Furthermore, they've been tricked into giving a cut of their prized confetti to someone else, just for the privilege of trading their life for it in the first place.

We're going off of your example here. The one where the person is on twitter all day collecting welfare, and you're perfectly ok with that

Why is twitter less important than entering data on a spreadsheet? Hey, maybe this guy's twitter is fucking hilarious! Maybe he's honing his writing chops and is going to write America's next great novel, in very short installments. Maybe he's been so broken down by a system whose only goal is to dominate and destroy that a few lol's from strangers is enough to boost his self-esteem to a level where he isn't going to kill himself and twelve other people in a mall. I'm not saying his twitter IS better, I'm just trying to open your mind to the possibility that it might just be. We aren't robots in a factory, let's not set our value system to those parameters, either.

Well if you're broke and not trying to get a job, I'd say that's pretty lazy.

Yeah. So, there's this thing called rent. There's this thing called artificially high food prices, land prices, and health care prices. The amount of work a person has to do (and freedom they have to give up) in order to exist in the modern world is at its highest level in history (except for people participating in the industrial revolution -- that shit is really fucked up). Seriously. Medieval serfs worked fewer hours, with more freedom. That everyone tells you we have it better off today with all of our "labor saving" devices and amazing technological freedom and whatever else, is just another tenet of this religion.

Why can't I be against both of these things?

Fair point. You can, but you aren't. Your work (and mine, and most every one else's) helps fund and support these things. By the way, I'm ok with you being against taxes, if that's what you're into. I just think you aren't going far enough. Taxes are bad, but slavery is worse! Abolish them both. Worry less about having full pockets, and more about having an empty heart.

It makes me think you're intellectually lazy.

I am intellectually lazy. I'm also lazy, period. I do as little work as possible. Hey, I also pay an incredibly small amount of taxes! Nifty!

I devote as much of my time as I can to trying to help people (sometimes by arguing with them -- if I didn't care, I wouldn't be being mean to you), and to helping myself get by. I've never had any "work" I've done make the world a better place. I've done things that have, but it sure as hell hasn't been work.

Thanks for getting back to me, sorry it took me so long to return the favor.

Honestly all of that stuff you're talking about isn't that important. The most important thing is that the people being taxed earned their pay. Beyond that it's just semantics.

Why is twitter less important than entering data on a spreadsheet? Hey, maybe this guy's twitter is fucking hilarious! Maybe he's honing his writing chops and is going to write America's next great novel, in very short installments. Maybe he's been so broken down by a system whose only goal is to dominate and destroy that a few lol's from strangers is enough to boost his self-esteem to a level where he isn't going to kill himself and twelve other people in a mall. I'm not saying his twitter IS better, I'm just trying to open your mind to the possibility that it might just be. We aren't robots in a factory, let's not set our value system to those parameters, either.

Because you can't feed yourself that way. If we were in the jungle would you roll over and die because you don't feel like hunting today? If that's not an option why is it an option to not "hunt" in today's society just because you don't feel like it?

There are two types of leeches on society. First there are the freeloaders who don't do work and feel entitled. Sure, those people suck.

But then there's the second type is the people who figured out how to game the system. These people make shitloads of money by destroying stuff. If you haven't seen it yet, check out this article about Boston Consulting Group. These are the types of people who are responsible for the current recession.

I don't mind if people just want to squeak by doing the minimum that's required of them. More power to them! Just because I'm ambitious doesn't mean I'm better than everyone who's not.

It's absurd how both parents have to work a job these days to raise a family. It wasn't always like this. The responsibility for the rat race falls almost entirely on the fat cats, not the stray cats. The notion that the fat cats somehow earned their money is completely absurd.

Thank you for this. This is actually one of the points I've been trying to get across, but I think it got lost in my assholishness. The argument made against entitlement is typically from a stance of entitlement!

I don't mind if people just want to squeak by doing the minimum that's required of them.

This is what I do. And since I think that minimum should be less, I strive to make it so. It's a surprisingly ambitious endeavor for someone as lazy as everyone tells me I am.

Work at it. I know you really don't want to, but if you can't at least pretend to come up with something by lunchtime you're fired, you lazy non-contributer, you. You will lose your house and your car, and your wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend/dog/parrot won't love you anymore. You will no longer be able to afford all the latest releases on DVD and your life will be meaningless.

Your right to live depends on this. But you're free to do something else if you want, whatever.

Yeah, So, there's this thing called content. There's this thing called artificially inflated upvotes. The amount of work a person has to do (and freedom they have to give up) in order to exist in this community is at its highest level in history.

I'd rather post the minimum amount possible and sit on twitter and hope the rest of you hard workers upvote me.

I have seen this first hand too. I work retail, and ever single day I see people coming in, using food stamps to buy candy, chips and Red Bull. It disgusts me. Not a single person so far (that I have seen) has used food stamps to buy legitimate food.

My mother is a landlord and owns several cottage properties that are frequently rented by low income peoples. She does this because most of them are guaranteed to have the majority of their rent paid by the state. In some cases, all they're required to pay is at most 40 dollars, some of which never do. Frequently they decide to trash her properties and leave town forever, stiffing her for months of rent and leaving with thousands of dollars in damage.

It sucks and probably because of this she watches Fox News, and has a skewed perspective of poor people being lazy, ungrateful bastards. I agree with her that what she has to go through is unfair to her, and there desperately needs to be a system in place to stop people like this from abusing the system.

Errr, she chooses to rent to these people because of the government paying the rent for them, and then complains about it? Her choice. She could do the work to get desirable tenants instead, but it sounds like laziness is easy.

It's that or having the chance not get any rent money at all, you shouldn't go around calling people lazy especially when you don't know all the work that goes into maintaining properties. And it's not all tenants, some of them do this, and it sucks.

From the days of the hyper-Calvinist Puritans who believed that any sign of bad fortune crossed you off the list of THE ANNOINTED and into the pit of damnation, Mercans have done amazing tricks with their brains to avoid the thought that they could end up on the shit-end of the eternal life stick. The very existence of the damned poor fouls the nest.

I think it has to do with how many times and for how long you've been stuck in line at the grocery store behind a person using food stamps... and you have a lot of time to observe their personal habits and those of their children.

Worst case senario... Would you rather have the person in line getting food for the kids and themselves and sitting on there lazy ass watching Oprah, OR robing your apartment or selling drugs or prostituting herself for money and then have to pay to imprison her? Welfare states= low crime, no crowded prisons.

We can have one now, if you like. Though I'm a libertarian, I have little ill will here... actual welfare is way down on the list of big problems we face.

My problem is that as a nation, we're wanting to put more and more people on welfare, even those that are working. Liberals/progressives/leftists have always claimed that they wanted to empower people... but this health care farce does the exact opposite. I'd say that you were giving up and screaming "you're all just too incompetent to do it yourselves, let government do it for you!"... except it's like you never tried in the first place.

If medical bills are high, then do things to lower them where we can afford to pay them ourselves.

And it's the same with every other type of aid. It's like you're actively discouraging people to take care of themselves. I don't understand this.

Oh jeez, how valiant of you. Let's create a straw man argument: "Why do so many people think that every single person receiving government aid is a lazy bum and/or teenage girl with eight kids?" And then paint yourself as the reasonable one. I have never heard even the furthest of the right claim that everybody who receives gov't assistant is a lazy bum/teenage girl with 8 kids. Sure, there is a general sentiment that people are taking advantage of government handouts, and if you choose to sit on some pedestal and ignore the fact that, "hey, they might be onto something," the only unreasonable one is you.

I own a house in a low-income neighborhood. It's very diverse. There are a lot of young families here, and a lot of single parent families who receive housing and food benefits. Can you guess who has the best dressed kids? Who's rockin' the white nikes, who has the flashiest rims, and long, gaudy fake fingernails? Can you guess who's keeping the 3 liquor stores, 3 payday advance stores and two tobacco outlet stores in business, all within a half mile of my house? Can you guess who has more (dangerous) dogs than they can control/take care of? Just guess. I don't have to give you the answer.

I moved into the neighborhood I live in because the city was doing this "community restoration" project. I actually received a grant for buying the house. I've fixed it up and helped make this neighborhood a little more respectable, as have many other hardworking, lower-to-middle income families. The irony is that tax dollars are (were) being spent to "restore" this neighborhood, while tax dollars are also being spent that help to maintain what is wrong with the neighborhood: drug dealers living on unemployment/disability, and trashy people with disposable income thanks to government handouts spending their money on trashy businesses, drugs, and overpriced clothing/rims/nails/hair, etc.

Actually the elementary school I started at I fit right in with everybody with my hand-me-downs and generally ridiculous wardrobe. It wasn't until I moved to a primarily white, middle-class neighborhood and started at that school that I started getting any shit for what I wore.

Yes, I am bitter. I work hard, and I pay the government a lot of money to sustain/keep complacent people who are essentially working against me. If anything, the point I'm making is that the bitterness is warranted.

Reasonable discussion doesn't start by dismissing your opposition as completely unreasonable. It begins with maybe even the slightest bit of understanding and acknowledgement. But that's not the typical reaction from the opposing side, quite the opposite in fact, and it generally implies that having their opinion is indicative of being a greedy white privileged person who prays to sarah palin at night.

And for the record, I am not a tea partier, I voted for Obama and I'm still happy with that decision.

I know the argument is whether or not we should be allowing tax payer money to pay for welfare for lazy ass bums. Every person who I have heard is against the welfare system subject brings this up.

But look at the flip side, for christ's sake.

What about the people that aren't lazy bums, the ones looking for a job but can't find one, that actually need and deserve the welfare? Consider yourself; what if you suddenly lost your job due to circumstances out of your control? Wouldn't you like to know you have a safety net until you get your "lazy ass" back on your feet?

If you say yes, its hypocritical: You can't say "I get welfare, but those fucks don't," thats not how it works.

If you say no, then your a penny pinching ass that doesn't want to pay taxes and help a fellow man. Go move to Somalia or some shit.

Because, by the nature of the political system, the distribution of welfare is bureaucratic instead of being at the discretion of the individual. Since the rules of the bureaucracy allow for this type candidate, for various reasons more or less valid, it is enough for people to denounce the system.

In a welfare market, aid is received by meeting the conditions of the individual giving out the aid. So, if one is truly in need, or the job market is truly broken, then one can simply agree to do what the benefactors requires in return for aid (possible reform of character or other behavioral conditions).

Originally shills liked this argument of 'the poor are grafting bums living off the taxpayer' to justify giving all the money to Israel. Now the paper tiger is being circulated again to stop meanies criticizing poor old Goldman Sachs and the like.

I am currently on food assistance because it has taken me longer than I thought to find a full time job. I have found one and am waiting for it to start. I will have spent about $250 dollars in benefits before I have a stable income. I have paid at least that much in taxes with previous jobs so I can rationalize it that way.

If you would have told me 2 years ago that I would be on food stamps, I would have laughed in your face. I really find it embarrassing. I have not told my family. I only go shopping for food when the store is almost empty. It has really changed my view about government aid.

All form of doublethink or hasty generalization comes from some rationalization for the sake of comfort. If conservatives had to reconcile their desire to rid people of welfare (and thus rid themselves of responsibility for other people) in the face of starving mothers and children, disabled veterans, and people who just have really rotten luck, they might feel guilt.

Far easier to overgeneralize the people who you will be willfully fucking over as deserving your ire and scorn. It's as simple as that. Basic psychology really.

Might I just say, how long til we can have a reasoned discussion about anything? The state of politics in this country is like two parents bickering in front of the kids. No discussion, just complaints.

It's not that every person receiving govt aid is like that, it's that too many are and we enable them - with our hard earned money. Then again, it's better than giving it to Raytheon to buy weapons to oppress people in their own countries half way around the world.

It goes hand-in-hand with the meme that welfare is a crushing and ever-growing burden on the budget, responsible for all tax rises on decent hard workin folk and soon to overwhelm the system. Whereas in reality it's about 4% of total government spending vs over 50% for military expenditure.

On the flip side of the coin, there are people who abuse the shit out of the system. Not everyone on assistance is some poor hard luck case that just needs a chance to shine. I've met people who think the government/society owes them something and do all they can to keep getting free shit, with out any thought as to where it all comes from. I've seen people share tips on how to lie and stay on housing assistance even after they got a raise and could easily afford it. I've seen people on food stamps with plasma TV's and every fucking game consol around and a shit load of games, not to mention Iphones and nice ass cars. And they feel no shame. At all. The safety nets are there for the people who need them, and those people I respect ( I understand shit happens ), but to assume that every person on assistance is being picked on is foolish. I wonder how many downvotes this will get.

My biggest problem with welfare is that often it doesn't help those its supposed to help. NOT because there are too many people on it or because of people abusing it.

Members of my family were working, going through tough times because of reduced hours, tried to get some minor help like the food assistance or something. They made a few hundred dollars too much to qualify. They didn't get assistance (and luckily have family who can help) Not a huge deal for them.

But it made me think of other folks out there and stories friends (current and former single parents) have told me. Welfare is an either you have it or you don't proposition - at least here. There is no gradual you get off it process. You use welfare while you go to school to get better job? You then get entry level job - yeah, it pays you $30-$40 k a year...but you lose so much in benefits (because you have kids, childcare credits, food assistance, etc), you are actually worse off than when you started - at least financially.

Why can't we make it easier for it to be a temporarily relief, let people go to school, and help them gradually get off of it instead of kicking them out of the program entirely? That would be money worth spending given that people who get educated and get jobs will pay more in taxes than they took in while in the program.

My daughter is on medicaid. When my wife and I found out she was pregnant my business was running good. We had just bought a house and a new truck for her to drive. A month after that things started getting slow. My business has been declining for over a year now. I sold my personal vehicle to give us some money for bills. I've been looking for a second job with no success and my wife has recently started working. I am hoping that soon my business can pick back up so I can get back to where I was.

I spent 18 years administering social security benefits. Out of a caseload of over 1000 I can honestly say that about 20 of them were long-term, deliberately unemployed people. But to be fair, they were unemployable.

Everyone else was on the books through no fault of their own and their stay was usually as temporary as they could manage.

You're generalizing just as many lefties generalize that every single person receiving government aid is a future JK Rowlings that will, with a little help, create something of value to society.

That's not always the case. When you give people shelter, food, and money, there are not many things they will strive for. Giving unemployment for almost a year keeps people unemployed for much longer than they normally would in any economic climate.

My view is that the difference between the government benefits one can receive in the bad times from the government and the benefits one can get from getting an entry level job, should be great enough that people will be motivated to get a job as soon as possible.

That's really not the case with most people. We reward people for being out of work. I have no problem with having unemployment insurance and helping those that are physically/mentally disable that cannot work temporarily or for long-term. However, I believe most people can and should work. We need to stop looking down at the menial tasks/jobs in America. There is nothing wrong with working as a janitor or in the food service industry. Take pride in what you do, work hard, and someone will notice your hard work. I truly believe that not working at all leads to health problems and addiction. People need to keep themselves busy.

So, OP you are looking at the same problem from totally different perspective. Not everyone that is on unemployment is just down on their luck and in need of chance. Just like not everyone is trying to game the system. I just believe that we should do all we can to get people working by not making the incentives NOT to work as great as we do today.

"We need to stop looking down at the menial tasks/jobs in America. There is nothing wrong with working as a janitor or in the food service industry. Take pride in what you do, work hard, and someone will notice your hard work."Having spent a good portion of my working life in food service, I can say that the odds are against "someone noticing your hard work." Who is "someone"? Do you think that dishwashers and bussers are promoted to cooks and servers, then managers? Do you think that some entrepreneur will notice the hard-working prep cook and give him a high-paying job? I worked full-time at my last waitressing job, and didn't even break 20k/ year (and I paid nearly 1/5 of my income towards insurance premiums). Of course, I never broke 20k as an instructor at the university where I was working on my MA and PhD, either (but at least I had benefits).

Your comment reminds me of the Honduran guy working the grill at Qdoba (where I also worked for a time) who put in full-time hours at the restaurant and as a carpenter. Or the guy in the hotel kitchen who sliced open his hand but refused to go the hospital as he was afraid he would be fired. Who is going to notice their hard work, and ostensibly do what, give them a job with benefits and a living wage?

The only way to promote the idea that there is "nothing wrong with working as a janitor or in the food service industry" is to make sure that those jobs pay a living wage and come with benefits. (And I couldn't even type that last sentence without sighing - there is no way in hell such jobs are going to pay a living wage.)I'm not referring to your argument about work being necessary for a healthy life and society; that seems common sense. However, you say that the "benefits one can receive in the bad times from the government and the benefits one can get from getting an entry level job, should be great enough that people will be motivated to get a job as soon as possible"; do you not understand how many low-paying, benefit-free jobs there are in this country? Do you not understand how many people are applying for jobs at Target and Burger King right now? (I'm referring to the US, to be clear.) Damn, I don't mean to get ranty, but do you understand that when your waitress is sick she will work anyway, because she doesn't have sick days, and if she works in an at-will state, could be fired for missing work?We here in the US really like to believe that if we work hard, we will be economically successful; but for the majority of Americans, this just isn't so. So, where do you go from here?

The problem is that he and the other "no handout" enthusiasts up here don't realize that people in the middle and upper class don't exist in a societal vacuum where the poor and indigent don't affect their lives. They can ignore the indigent, the poor, and the working poor, but what we can't ignore are the negative effects of the cycles of desperation, violence, drug use, and incarceration that self-perpetuates because of the disparity of the distribution of human wealth and resources in this country (I mean the US).

Society and Economics are complex systems on par with other global systems (like the environment, per se), and ignoring the negative factors of each create problems that don't just go away because we beat them down with ideology. These problems are experienced by everyone, and if you want a better system (pursuit of happiness rings a bell), then you don't dismiss social problems until they're epidemic and subsequently expect the dog-eat-dog marketplace to come up with an organic solution.

Ideology must bow to reality if we mean to take our experiment closer to our stated goals.

when i was 18 my first job was as a waitress at a truck stop. i made a buck fifty an hour. i made very good tips. i was rolling in dough.

i worked with a woman. she was a widow with a young son. she was able to support the two of them quite comfortably. i'm sure her rent was probably what mine was at the time (1978, btw) -- $100 a month.

it's now 32 years later. a waitress at that same truck stop is earning $2.10 an hour. i'm sure her rent is at least four times what mine was. there's no possible way she could raise a kid with what's left over.

A waitress at a truck stop may not have been able to make good money, but there were waiters at the steakhouse I waited tables at that could make $1000 per week if it was a good week (and $500 if it was bad and/or they didn't work very much).

But I submitted it precisely because that is almost the exact response I get whenever I bring the topic up amongst the people I talk to about this the most--coworkers. I don't work with idiots either, but I think my career field does seem to attract individuals with more of a right-leaning mentality. So sorry if it was a generalization, but it has been pretty accurate to my experiences lately.

Also, I agree with you in principle. A productive society is a good thing. But saying "We reward people for being out of work" is as subjective a claim as saying "lefties generalize that every single person receiving government aid is a future [successful person]". Neither are 100% true but both hinder the discussion.

The lower a person's income, the more of that income they tend to spend, and therefore the more jobs it creates.

People have the least income when they're out of work.

If you abolish unemployment insurance, not only do you create hardships for people through no fault of their own, but you eliminate the jobs created by those peoples' spending. That in turn leads to more jobs cut, which leads to less spending, which leads to more jobs cut...and that's how you create a recession.

Unemployment benefits are hugely important to you even if you never receive them because they preserve the existence of your job.

As for the difference between food and housing benefits and an entry level job, it's quite large, and those benefits have lifetime limits that expire quickly. Look into what those programs actually offer, and the qualifications on the aid. You'll find it illuminating.

Also, we have an obsession with the idea that "parasites" are destroying our lives. People are interconnected. It's what we do, what we are. Anyone that says "Oh, I'm a self-made man, I started from nothing, and now I have all this, everyone else is lazy and stupid and weak" is usually standing on a pile of bodies.

Re-upvoting mayonesa because I don't agree with them, but want the discussion to keep going.

That, and it's also worth remembering that the 'parasite factor' of paying a jobless person $20,000 a year so they can stay housed and fed pales in comparison to the 'parasite factor' of people employed in the so-called financial industry who trade in derivatives and manage hedge funds, who siphon billions out of the economy.